SotW November 15th - 21st, 2008

Adieu mes amis, it is time for Week 38 of SotW. A week where the crème of Basenotes Nation rose to the top. We start with the raw ingredients that make up the Week 38 souffle. 1,162 posts from 684 different scents. Of those, 468 scents were worn just once for an individuality index of 40.3%. There were 47 (6.9%) scents logged in for the first time in week 38. The total posts number is slightly down from last week but number of scents and singletons were slightly up. The individuality index is creeping back up to 40% again after a few weeks below that line. 47 new scents is the lowest since I’ve been keeping track. Still trying to figure out whether we have a smaller cold-weather scent wardrobe and that is what is behind the lower numbers or if it is we’re just more busy this time of year and forget to post. The jury is still out on this one.
The big 5 put in a solid week led by Guerlain with 87 wears from 30 scents. Guerlain placed three scents in the top 10 at the top with Vetiver and tied for 10th with Jicky and L’Heure Bleue. L’Heure Bleue has been getting quite a bit of wear in the last month and it has been pretty evenly split between the men and the women. It is always interesting to watch a scent all of a sudden take off and show consistent wears from a number of different community members like L’Heure Bleue. I’m still looking to see if I can define the trigger for this. I have a theory and there is another scent showing a similar pattern to L’Heure Bleue and if it repeats I’ll share what I’ve seen. Serge Lutens is in its accustomed second position with 51 wears over 25 scents. More unusually is that there are two in the top 10 this week, Chergui tied for 5th and Ambre Sultan tied for 7th. What is similar from both Guerlain and Serge Lutens is that in any given week there are a number of scents that can be worn the most by Basenotes Nation. There were three Guerlains that were just outside the top 10 this week. Creed had 41 wears over 19 scents led by the #2 scent Bois du Portugal. Hermes also had 41 wears but over 15 scents and it was led by Terre D’Hermes in the #3 spot. Finally, Chanel has 38 wears over 16 scents with Egoiste at #10 leading the charge. The big 5 were responsible for 12 of the top 17 scents this week. The overall totals were 258 (22.2%) wears over 105 (15.4%) scents.
In the other houses Jo Malone, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Ormonde Jayne and Christian Dior all showed greater than 30% gains over their respective averages this week. Christian Dior placed Dior Homme in the top 10 in a tie for 5th. Ralph Lauren had its biggest week ever and that was due to the testing of this week’s #7 Polo Modern Reserve. Not only was Polo Modern Reserve the best new scent of the week it also had the effect of bringing up the wears of all the Polo line of scents. This has been going on for the last month as Ralph Lauren and particularly the different Polos have all been performing well above their average previous to the release of Polo Modern Reserve. This has been a phenomenon which has been repeated a number of times now when a particularly well-received and/or reviewed new scent hits the rest of the line picks up a halo effect and they all get increased wears. It looks to be about a 30-40% increase for 4-6 weeks before things settle back down to previous averages. Other examples of this have been Comme des Garcons around Hinoki and Estee Lauder around Sensuous. There were two houses which were significantly down this week and those were Caron and Givenchy. Based on the past I’m guessing these are just cyclical downs as they have too many scents for both houses that are worn by many members to stay down for long. There were a number of houses that have been posting above average the last few weeks which had a sort of backlash and now posted a slightly below average week. This group is made up of Parfumerie Generale, Estee Lauder, Burberry, and Bvlgari. This week also saw another halo effect expire, perhaps. Both Montale and Neil Morris benefitted from prominent banner ads and discounts at the beginning of the summer and that led to greatly increased wears for both houses over the last five months. For the most part they’ve been linked in their ups and downs over this time period. This week they remain linked as both of them post their lowest totals in over 23 weeks.
The remaining two scents in the top 10 are Tauer L’Air du Desert Marocain tied for 3rd and Yves St. Laurent M7 in 9th. M7 sure seems to be one of the biggest gainers as the temperatures drop as it is returning to the levels I saw in the early weeks of charting when the weather was cooler then, too.
Top 10 for November 15th – 21st, 2008
1.) Guerlain Vetiver 18 wears (1.5%)
2.) Creed Bois du Portugal 13 wears (1.1%)
3.) Hermes Terre D’Hermes 12 wears (1.0%)
3.) Tauer L’Air du Desert Marocain 12 wears (1.0%)
5.) Dior Homme 10 wears (0.9%)
5.) Serge Lutens Chergui 10 wears (0.9%)
7.) Ralph Lauren Polo Modern Reserve 9 wears (0.8%)
7.) Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan 9 wears (0.8%)
9.) Yves St. Laurent M7 8 wears (0.7%)
10.) Chanel Egoiste 7 wears (0.6%)
10.) Guerlain Jicky 7 wears (0.6%)
10.) Guerlain L’Heure Bleue 7 wears (0.6%)

As mentioned above there were three Guerlains in the just missed group, Heritage, Mitsouko and Shalimar. Chanel Coco and Robert Piguet Bandit round out the just missed list. In the new scent race you have to go all the way down to five wears to find Versace pour Homme and then one wear further back Estee Lauder Private Collection Amber Ylang Ylang and Comme des Garcons H&M. That’s it mes amis the soufflé has risen and Week 38 was another lovely concoction.
As always, you keep wearing ‘em and I’ll keep counting ‘em.
Have a well-fragranced week.